Pregnant Inmate Escapes Sanford Hospital

SANFORD - A Seminole County Jail inmate taken to Central Florida Regional Hospital on Thursday to give birth escaped, but she was soon arrested.

Nurses had connected Angela Kay Patton, 26, to three IVs and a device to monitor her baby, sheriff's spokeswoman Deanna Brown said.

A little after 4 p.m., when the deputy watching her stepped into the bathroom in the room, Patton disconnected her IVs and fled, Brown said.

Patton was recaptured minutes later at a home about three blocks from the hospital. She was wearing her hospital gown and the baby-monitoring belts, Brown said.

Patton, a former topless dancer, had been in the jail since Tuesday, when she was arrested by Sanford police on charges of grand theft, resisting arrest and trespassing. She was being held in lieu of $3,000 bond. Patton also will be charged with escape, Brown said.

Doctors later decided to induce labor, said Maj. Greg Futch, jail director. If Patton is unable to post bond once she and the baby are ready to be released from the hospital, she can ask a family member to care for the baby, Futch said. If not, the state will care for the child.